transmediale festival

transmediale is an international festival for contemporary art and digital culture founded in 1988, which takes place annually in Berlin. It is the largest festival of its kind in the world, a celebration of culturally significant advanced artistic outlooks, using new technologies. The festival includes exhibitions, performances, screenings, a conference, a programme of in-depth discussions and talks, workshops, a publication, and partner events.

For both the 2010 and 2011 festivals I lived in Berlin and worked closely with the transmediale team to deliver the festival. Assisting with the exhibition, looking after guest services for over 200 international participants, managing the festival’s prestigious Opening Gala and the Awards Ceremony.

The 2010 festival theme was ‘FUTURITY NOW!’ As 2010 has long been “a year which has been synonymous with past images of the future. Writers and commentators throughout the 20th century strove to depict 2010 as a shining example of a future framed by technological progress and social harmony. The festival invited artists, scientists, media activists, thinkers and visionaries to ask not what the future has in store for us, but what we have in store for the future.

In 2011 the festival attracted over 30,000 visitors, and the theme RESPONSE:ABILITY explored the challenges of an inherently connected society “going live” in the digital age. Including new initiatives such as the Open Web Award, the festival explored those real and active zones of radical artistic, cultural and political activity that we, as a global community of individuals and independent initiatives, need to protect in order to guarantee the unhindered freedom to create new forms of communication, social interaction and cultural development.